Obama’s ’12 (Fiscal Cliff) Campaign

President Barack Obama gets a hug after speaking at the Rodon Group, which manufactures over 95% of the parts for K'NEX Brands toys, on Nov. 30, 2012, in Hatfield, Pa.

“The polling is with the president on this,” one media commentator says.

The president campaigned on this, another says of President Barack Obama’s plan to tax the wealthiest Americans more — “the clear mandate of this election.”

While Republican leaders complain of Obama continuing to campaign like an election candidate in the “fiscal cliff negotiations” underway on Capitol Hill, the Obama campaign is rallying supporters to do just that: Pressing the administration’s message that the typical middle-class family of four stands to lose $2,200 a year if Congress lets all the Bush-era tax cuts expire at year’s end.

“Right now, President Obama is asking you to think about what $2,000 a year means to you and your family — because Congress needs to hear it,” Stephanie Cutter, the Obama re-election campaign’s deputy press secretary, says in an e-mail to supporters with a YouTube collection of Obama’s campaign promises to tax the wealthier harder and spare the middle class. “President Obama is asking Congress to do the right thing and act before the New Year, but he needs our help. We’ve got a good track record here: When we make our voices heard and urge Congress to take action — whether it’s about health care, student loans, Wall Street reform, or `Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ – they listen.”

“For more than 19 months, President Obama campaigned on the idea that if we’re going to be successful, every American has to do their part and pay their fair share,” Cutter says in the pitch. `A centerpiece of his platform, and the campaign you built, was that income taxes should not go up on the middle class — that the responsible way to pay down the deficit, while investing in education, job training, research, and science, is to ask the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more.”

“None of this is a surprise to anyone in Washington,” Cutter says in closing. “They heard the same arguments we did — they paid attention to the campaign, and then they saw a clear majority of voters deliver a verdict on November 6th.”